Drive-by Reporting

At SF Weekly, we take journalism seriously without getting stuffy about it, make sardonic wit and literary style weekly occurrences, and absolutely cherish political independence. We can inveigh against the Total Information Awareness mindset of the Bush administration, and then,...

Last month, Mayor Gavin Newsom held a press conference at the upscale hot-dog restaurant Show Dogs, packed it with press and midlevel bureaucrats, showed up late, and then led an endless platitude-fest about his plans to promote jobs in San Francisco.

You might intuit Rep. Jackie Speier, the frosh congresswoman from the Peninsula, doesn't like her new job in Washington, D.C. - if, before her first full term is even up, her name is appearing in a poll for another elected office.

Knowledgeable sources say that the Physicians Organizing Committee is one of several Bay Area front groups set up to disguise a strange political cult. Although a representative for the committee denied the link, it has shared personnel with an alleged cult front group and received a grant from a nonprofit linked to the cult.

In addition to being a lifeline for needy disabled Californians, the state Department of Social Services' In-Home Supportive Services program is a cash cow for Democrats. The program's political status has made it a target for Republicans, who characterize it as a bastion of fraud and corruption, and thus ripe for $1.1 billion in cuts.